Pakistan abducts own citizens, muzzles human rights watchdog: UN

The UN Human Rights Committee has accused Pakistan of state-sponsored abductions and a death penalty that amounts to torture.

Asking Pakistan to address concerns over its human rights failings, the UN committee also held Islamabad guilty of muzzling its national human rights watchdog.

According to a report by news agency Reuters, Pakistan’s Human Rights Minister Kamran Michael had defended his country's record before the committee earlier this month but he failed to convince its members.

The members of the UN Committee expressed concern over non-performance of the chairman of Pakistan's National Commission for Human Rights, who was allegedly barred from travelling to Geneva to meet them and was not able to probe wrongdoing.

"The Commission is prevented from fully cooperating with United Nations human rights mechanisms, cannot inquire into the practices of the intelligence agencies, and is not authorized to undertake full inquiries into reports of human rights violations by members of the armed forces," the UN committee said in its report.

Pakistan has faced criticism over a long list of human rights violations in the country including renewed use of the death penalty, its blasphemy laws, and "enforced disappearances" and extrajudicial killings.

“Enforced disappearances, seen in tribal areas and Baluchistan for the past 15 years, have become widespread across Pakistan,” UN committee member Olivier de Frouville told media persons.

"This is an admitted fact even within the country that this is carried out by agents of the state," he added.